PARKER BHE TRAP GUN OR LIVE PIGEON GUN?

[6pt-Sika]

Originally Posted by todd allen

That fits the description and qualifications of a pigeon gun.
As for the Golden Age of pigeon shooting, I feel like I lived it. The vast majority of my experience has been Perazzi, but I blocked out periods that were dedicated to the Parker Brothers purpose built target guns.
During this period, I entered a few sporting clays shoots with these guns.
I was a registered AA shooter, so I would sign in into the Hunter Class as Arthur du Bray.
One particular shoot I tied with a Master Class shooter from Utah, who knew me quite well. The chatter at the clubhouse was mostly about "Who is this duBray guy?" I was shooting a 1874 250 Grade Underlifter.
There was a bunch of pointing and elbow jabbing when the gallery saw me show up with an ancient hammer gun for a shoot-off against one of our top SC shooters.
I could tell a lot of stories about shooting various dedicated competition guns from Parker against all comers in pigeon games.
It's been my experience that the single sight plane guns hold an advantage in many target games, especially with the long complicated presentations in SCs, but the SxSs hold up well in the box bird games.

I’ve not been in the pigeon ring games for more than 5 or 6 years , but I’ve never fired at a pigeon be it Colombaire or boxbirds with anything but a Parker same can be said for boxbird quail . I have a Peruvian friend that goes to the kings cup each year and he keeps telling me a 32” guns to long for Colombaire he may be correct but over the years all but two races have been shot with tight choked 32” guns and the other two were shot with a 30” gun .

[John Davis]

Manitoba was part of DuBray’s territory. You’ll find in Parkers in Pulp where he made a number of business trips there and enjoyed the hunting as well. No doubt the order was placed on one of those visits.

[Double Lab]

I preferred 28" for Columbaire and 30" for box birds for the simple reason I could move them quicker to the bird.

[Bill Burwash]

Originally Posted by todd allen

I would really love to see some pictures of this one.

There are a number of pic and a long interesting discussion on this gun in a companion thread titled Parker BHE Engraving Patterns. The thread is about 6 down from this thread.

[Bill Burwash]

Originally Posted by Drew Hause

Apparently more interested in golf & curling
https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/people/pitblado_i.shtml

No hits in the Sporting Life archives which reported major Canadian trap shoots.

He was friends with Dan Bain, who won the The Dominion of Canada Trap Shooting Championship in Toronto in 1903

Live Pigeon competitions became much less popular in Great Britain and Canada after the 1900 Paris Olympic Games, but I couldn't find a date when they were outlawed by legislation.

Thanks, Drew. Looks like Mr Pitbaldo was associated with trap shooting to some extent.

[Bill Burwash]

Originally Posted by John Davis

Manitoba was part of DuBray’s territory. You’ll find in Parkers in Pulp where he made a number of business trips there and enjoyed the hunting as well. No doubt the order was placed on one of those visits.

Thanks. Very interesting. DuBray sure covered a lot of territory. Winnipeg was a small town back in the 1900's and I can't image he sold many Parkers.